"What do you know about your blood?" G asks, his voice even and steady.
Bae feels G's steadiness, and it settles his anxiety.
"It can help with a cure. He said a serum can be made with my blood. I don't know how, though."
Back then, he wasn't so interested in knowing about a serum.
"In these symbols, my brother describes a formula, one that will inoculate against the virus: the correct formula he deciphered just before he died, if I'm reading his message correctly. It was too late for him, so he wrote it in code." G's silence echoes the sadness etched across his face. "My brother wrote this hoping you would find me."
"You mean," Bae says, still thinking about the code. "He did figure out a cure?"
"Yes."
Bae's face flushes, remembering the night he fled the house. He's always believed Grandfather failed to find a way to fight the virus. And that's why he died.
"Does he say anything else?" Bae asks.
G looks at his notes. "His first message is how deadly the virus is. I remember how we tried to destroy the virus at his lab."
"You were a part of that?" Bae nearly chokes on the words.
"Yes. I was the only one who knew the truth about your grandfather's faked death."
"But my mother talked to you. You didn't tell her?"
"I couldn't, son. It was for the safety of your mother and you." G flips through the pages of the journal, glances at his notes. "The serum he gave to me and your mother, years ago, was no good."
"Why are you alive, then?" the boy asks.
"We fled our home before the sickness came north. It was first released in the southern states, where you lived. We escaped out here before it migrated our way."
Bae thinks back to the Barrier and the conversation of the two watchmen. It seems so long ago. Has it only been two years?
"G," Bae asks. "Did you cross the Barrier like we did?"
"Yes. The northern section."
"Did someone get shot by a watchman?"
G looks surprised. "How do you know that?"
"Grandfather and I hid in the Barrier during the crossing. We had to spend the daytime there. Two watchmen ate lunch above our hiding place. They talked about a group of people who crossed up north. They said a person was shot."
"My father," Ever joins in. "He was shot when we crossed. He died a week later." Pain floods her face, reflected in the soft glow of the fire. She knows of death too, then.
"I'm sorry, Ever," Bae says.
Chapter 52 - A Plan
The night's late. The fire burns low, most of the wood gone. G leans close to the low flames to read his notes, flips through the journal pages, and then consults the notes again.
"There are gaps in his message. But I think I can guess them."
Bae sits near G. Ever stitches a shirt, mending a gap in the over-shirt she's been wearing.
"The message talks about your blood, Bae. Our code wasn't sophisticated enough for detailed messages. But it's clear enough in explaining what to do. Your blood carries the proteins for the right antidote. Combined with the right plants in the correct ratio it will work. Without your blood, the antidote is useless." G turns the page. "The formula is easy to decipher. It says here the serum has to be injected directly into the bloodstream."
"That's a problem." Ever stops her work on the shirt and looks at her grandfather. "Needles and a syringe. We'll need those to inject the serum. Back at camp, we don't have those. I know. I keep the med kit organized, such as it is."
G frowns.
"Will the mixture for the antidote need to be done in a pot or beaker and will it have to be heated?" she asks.
"Yes, to both questions," G says. "It's equal parts creosote leaf and sagebrush root combined with Bae's blood. It's to be heated as close to boiling as possible, but no boiling, and then cooled." G looks up. "More than once, my brother states we must protect Bae. Without his blood, if the virus reaches us, we're all dead."
"We're in the wilderness, G," she protests and shakes her shirt out. "The virus is in the cities. It can't get out here?" Bae's startled by the change in Ever's tone, almost accusatory. "You always said we'd be safe out here."
"Ever," G says, his voice even and steady. "I know I said that. And I thought that was true." He taps a journal page. "In here, my brother says the virus has mutated since the early days in the lab. Maybe the Agency changed it, I don't know. But the virus is spreading, on the wind, and by drones. It may have the ability to reach us, even out here, if it continues to mutate and adapt to conditions so that it stays active for longer periods." G sighs. "We don't have much time. Tomorrow, at that town, we have to find medical supplies. We'll travel at midday," G says, his mind made up. "It will be dangerous, but I don't see any other way. G closes the journal and gives it to Bae. "Medical supplies might be in a building or an ambulance. Won't know 'til we look around. Tomorrow night, I'll go after the supplies."
Ever looks like she's going to say something, but G puts up his hand.
"We need sleep now. In the morning, before we leave, will be time for questions and final adjustments."
Ever stays quiet, accepting G's words.
~
Bae lies sideways on the cave floor, the two rabbit furs under his hip for cushion. He stares at the soft orange glow of the fire coals. The familiar pang of being a burden is back. His imagination flashes on a scene where he quietly sneaks off to go it on his own, so he isn't a burden to G and Ever. But he knows he's a fool to think this way. If his blood is as important as Grandfather and G say, he will stay to help any way he can.
Knowing his blood carries the antidote is overwhelming. He needs protection to keep the blood accessible? That's what G says. A burden, again. And that burden flows inside him.
The darkness grows as the coals die. Bae's exhaustion overcomes his anxiety and he drifts toward sleep. Strange. He's thinking of Ghost. He misses its steady sureness, how it never faltered when they were traveling, always sure of its choices. He wishes he could be like that.
Chapter 53 - Town
The next morning, long past first light, Bae wakes and sits up suddenly, as if late for school. He flashes back to those days, then realizes that's the dead life. He exhales, relieved.
As he comes fully awake, scenes from a dream cling to his memory: He and Ghost stand on a mesa ledge, surrounded by a landscape of smooth rock, burnt orange in color. Both look out over a vast plain below them, but fog covers the terrain. The boy has his right arm over Ghost's neck. That's all he recalls.
As Bae sits up in the cave, a familiarity lingers in the pit of his stomach, like he knows the place from his dream. Yet during the time he and the Ghost traveled together, they never looked out over a fog-covered landscape.
The boy glances around the cave. Empty. The light at the entrance fades briefly and brightens again. Twice. It's G and Ever. They smile at Bae. Ever laughs.
"Hi," she says. "Already, the morning sun is climbing and breakfast has been caught."
She holds up the cleaned bodies of two brook trout.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"Youngster took too long to fall asleep last night," G says in his even voice. "We let you have your rest."
The cave was pitch black last night. How did G know he was awake?
Ever stirs the fire, preparing the coals for cooking. She places the two brook trout on a flat piece of slate rock and moves it to the coals. Next, she repositions some of the coals around the rock to even out the heat. In a few minutes, the fish are sizzling on the heated rock.
"We leave when the sun is at its highest point," G says. "The town's about five miles northwest. We will get there in the early afternoon. The lazy time of day."
Breakfast is eaten in a rush and, not long after, the three companions leave the cave with G out front and Ever at the rear. They move single file down a flank of the canyon. G follows
a game trail that parallels the watercourse below.
Ever went over their basic hand signals before leaving the cave. Stop and go were easy. She also showed Bae the gestures for danger and for when to lie down to hide. Ever reassured Bae that whatever he didn't understand, she would help him with as they moved.
After half an hour of moving along the canyon flank, G turns down toward the creek and canyon bottom. Bae glances back past Ever in hopes he might glimpse their cave entrance. It's gone, evaporated in the folds of the canyon. He feels a pull to return to the familiar cave but pushes it back and looks out ahead, beyond G, into the unknown.
They cross the creek and angle up the other side, to the north rim. Again, as they move, Bae notices how often G glances around. Sometimes, when Bae looks back to check on Ever, she's surveying the trail behind them. She had instructed Bae to look back at her frequently, to keep eye contact with her, and to look forward at G, in case a message needs to be exchanged. There's a feeling of safety with these two. But their vigilance makes him nervous.
Once at the north rim, G turns them northwest, keeping the canyon on their left. On their right, a higher shoulder of rock rises a quarter mile back from the canyon lip where they walk. It's the first bench before the landscape moves even higher to another bench further back from the first one. A third bench builds on these two to what looks like the top of a mesa, several hundred feet above them. To Bae, it looks as if a mythological titan made giant stairs long ago to step down from the mesa top to the water below.
G walks a game trail that stays below the ledge of the first bench but above the flat ground between the first bench and the rim. This trail winds behind large brown boulders, in their resting places after tumbling down from above, and scattered sagebrush, buffalo berry, and snake broom bushes.
Bae notices how the boulders hide them. The route shields them from the view of anyone near the canyon rim, even from across the canyon on the southern rim. When he looks up at the ledge, he sees how it hides their movement from above, making it difficult for anyone up there to see them. It's impressive how the animals know how to survive and move undetected.
Two hours later, they stop.
The narrow canyon opens out in front of them, the bench above turns to the right, angling north. G walks to an enormous juniper tree at the edge of a steep slope, a juniper larger than any Bae has seen. It grows at the rim's edge, at the corner where the canyon opens up and spills into a wide valley below. The rim angles off to their right for another mile. In front of them, to the west, is the valley, nestled among low mesas that wrap the valley's edges.
G motions for them to follow. Without stopping, he passes between the thick green boughs of the juniper and disappears inside. They follow.
Inside the massive juniper, Bae is astonished at how much room there is. Scanning the inner cavity, he wonders how old the tree is. This sanctuary surely hides them from prying eyes. On the inside, the branches growing off the trunk come down to head height, but no further. This leaves room to sit up. The dried leaves are spikey as he brushes across them to a sitting spot, yet the aroma of the juniper is clean and refreshing. G speaks in a whisper.
"We'll rest here for now."
The old man takes off his pack and retrieves his water container. Bae and Ever do the same. He also instructs them to eat. Bae eats his last energy bar. It's quite hard now, but once his saliva softens it, the bar becomes chewy. Ever eats dried apple and venison jerky, offers a small piece to Bae.
It's good to stop. Bae's wound aches, and his walking fitness has suffered while recovering from the gunshot. The boy quietly begins a routine where he imagines his body building its strength as he rests. It's a mental game he started when Grandfather took him out on long walks in the hot desert. As they rested in the shade after a long hike, Bae imagined his body recovering from the strain and getting stronger with each breath he took. He felt it worked. When they walked back, he always had extra energy.
After eating, G crawls out the west side of the juniper, opposite from where Bae is sitting, to look at the valley. Only the soles of G's mocs show inside the tree. After a short time, he crawls back into the juniper to give a report.
"Ever. Take Bae with you and have a look," he whispers. "We'll talk when you come back." G touches Ever's arm. "Make sure Bae stays low and braces himself. The slope drops off at the lookout. Use the roots."
Ever nods, and she and Bae crawl using the same route G used. When they reach the outer edge of the juniper, Ever and Bae are side-by-side. Ever grips Bae's shoulder and makes sure he understands to do as she does. She shows him how to brace himself on the large roots. They both part the thick boughs and scoot further out.
Bae's astounded such a large tree is able to hang onto the edge of such a steep slope. The ancient roots grow out from the rim and twist down through the air to grab the hillside, then plunge back into the broken rock and dirt.
Below them and several hundreds of feet down a slope, the town spreads out across the valley. Several hundred homes and small ranches are scattered around the town. This valley is larger than the haunted valley Bae got sick in. It's a mile across from where they perch to the other side.
A two-lane road enters through a saddle in the mesa at the south, crosses a bridge, passes through the town proper, then travels straight up and out of the valley through a north saddle.
The town consists of two blocks of businesses on either side of the narrow road. Several other buildings spread out behind the main street businesses. Not much is moving, as far as Bae can see, and the town looks rundown. The word that comes to his mind is desperate.
Ever tugs on his sleeve, and they edge back into the juniper. G sits cross-legged on the far side. They gather as close to him as the branches allow.
"This is our town," he says. "No other towns are in the region. I'm guessing it's where the hunters live. So we have to assume they are vigilant. We also have to assume they are desperate for food and supplies." He looks at Bae. "We already know they will shoot to kill."
G clears and smoothens the dirt in front of him, draws a circle with his finger, and places a pebble at the edge. Next, he makes a straight slash through the circle.
"This is the valley and the town," he says, pointing to the middle of the circle. "This pebble is where we are now. Over here is the dump."
G makes a mark to the right of the pebble, between their position and the slash that represents the north-south road.
"We got lucky. The dump's on this side of town." He looks up. "Did you see it?"
"No," Bae answers, feeling foolish for not scanning the area better. He focus-locked on the town itself and its rundown condition.
"Yes," Ever says. "About two hundred yards to our right. Not far."
"Good," G confirms. "Ever and I are going to the dump and look for rubber for your huaraches. Once we get the material, we'll make them here. Bae, you are to stay." G looks hard at Bae. "Do you understand, son?"
"Yes," Bae says, disappointment written on his face.
"We'll move faster as a pair. Your footwear is a liability. Also," G adds, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We need eyes up here to watch the town, what's going on down there. So we can make a plan for tonight."
Both Ever and G look at Bae. The boy feels the flush of embarrassment but says nothing. G smiles and warmly squeezes his left shoulder.
"In time, son."
Bae nods.
"When you look out, keep your head down like Ever showed you. You must not be seen. Do not try to communicate with us, no matter what!"
"Yes, sir."
Ever starts readying herself. G already has his pack off. They won't need them, only knives and small water bottles strapped inside their shirts. Both G and Ever pull from their packs light brown scarves and wrap their heads and faces.
"Ready?" G asks.
"Let's go," Ever answers.
Chapter 54 - Re
con
The quiet in the juniper shelter settles on Bae. Weird. G and Ever have put themselves in danger for a pair of sandals for him. They are willing to risk capture and possible death to get him material for new footwear? It shocks the boy. And they had decided to do this before G deciphered his brother's code about the serum and Bae's blood and how important it is.
Will he do this for them if there comes a time, put his life in danger to help them? The thought stops him. He doesn't have an answer.
Bae scoots through the branches to the lookout spot and positions himself as comfortably as possible on the roots. Checking his position, he feels sure he isn't visible to any searching eyes. The view to the north is clear as it follows the edge of the bench. The boy scans the bench and slope, but sees no sign of his companions. His attention shifts to the town.
The town looks deserted. Cars and trucks, more trucks than cars, sit idle where they stopped running. Some of them have doors or trunks or engine hoods gaping open. The usual orderliness of a living and working town is gone. Two trucks are sprawled half on the sidewalk and half on the street, like they careened out of control and ended there. One has its front end inside the shattered picture window of a storefront. The other is a burned-out shell.
Bae scans the two blocks that span the main street. More shop windows are broken out, glass shards scattered across the cement sidewalk. Entrance doors lay open, some ripped off their hinges and angling away from the doorframes, reaching for the street.
Along the sidewalks and into the street are assorted items that once belonged in the shops: tools, chairs, old metal filing cabinets. One shop has a bright red couch in front, its cushions slashed and its stuffing exploded in all directions. More things lie in the street, pilfered and shaken to see if they carried any value before being discarded. A forest green metal filing cabinet straddles the double yellow line in the middle of the road, its four filing doors tossed randomly around it. Papers are scattered everywhere.
Amid the recklessness of the scene, Bae does not see a single person. Yet the town feels awake. He remembers G commenting that the hunters might be from this place. He broadens his survey beyond Main Street and looks to the outlying houses and ranches. Debris is everywhere, and more abandoned vehicles. There’s no sign of life, not even animals, dead or alive.